metaphysics

Logical Positivists

Despite what has just been said, it must be admitted that Kant’s constant talk about the supersensible makes many critics of metaphysics regard him as a dubious ally. This was certainly true in the case of the Logical Positivists, the philosophical school that has attacked metaphysical speculation most sharply in the 20th century. The Positivists derived their name from the “positive” philosophy of Auguste Comte, a 19th-century Frenchman who had represented metaphysical thought as a necessary but now superseded stage in the progression of the human mind from primitive superstition to modern science. Like Comte, the Logical Positivists thought of themselves as advocates of the cause of science; unlike Comte, they took up an attitude toward metaphysics that was uniformly hostile. The external reason for this was to be found in the philosophical atmosphere in the German-speaking world in the years following World War I, an atmosphere that seemed to a group of thinkers known as the Vienna Circle to favour obscurantism and impede rational thought. But there were, of course, internal reasons as well.

According to the Positivists, meaningful statements can be divided into two kinds, those that are analytically true or false and ... (200 of 37,078 words)