The Logical Error of Logical Positivism

[David Moskowitz]

The Logical Error of Logical Positivism

David Moskowitz

Carnegie-Mellon University

Fall 1986

The philosophy of Logical Positivism is an attempt to solve a host of outstanding philosophical problems through the logical analysis of language. This analysis,they say, gives rise to the discovery that all metaphysical statements are meaningless and can tell us nothing about the real world. While Logical Positivism professes to use the scientific methods of logic to prove the futility of metaphysics , specifically the futility of transcendental metaphysics, it eventually adopts a subjectivism as bad as that which they are trying to eliminate. In attempting to eliminate one admittedly destructive view of reality, Logical Positivism asserts that all reality is inherently unknowable and that no one view can claim more validity than any other view because all views are meaningless.

 

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The Logical Error Of Logical Positivism

 

by

 

David Moskowitz

 

Carnegie-Mellon University

 

Fall 1986