Dear Roger Schlafly,

Logical/Empirical Positivism is a term notoriously resisting clear definition. I agree that it has a number of interesting and even desirable facets, but overall, I think, that it has led (and under the cover of analytical philosophy still leads) science into a dead end.

Three criticalities:

POSITIVISM: The term implies analysis, affirmation and verification, which it inherited from the linguistic turn (e.g. Frege, Wittgenstein). But already the late Wittgenstein denied language to be positively=affirmatively tractable and Quine's confirmation holism kissed the idea of scientific Positivism goodbye. Only Lego-worlds are affirmatively tractable.

LOGICAL: Today there are more than a dozen of most varied logics in use. Which one is the right one? Moreover, all of them suffer from what is called the foundational or grounding problem of logic. The idea that logic represents something in the world goes into the face of philosophical tradition since Kant, who located it in the mind. This is why the '3-uns' of the contest theme are mere logical pastime and have no effect whatsoever in physics or elsewhere.

EMPIRICAL: Positivism, by discriminating metaphysical ideas like causation, elevated instrument readings, photon counter knacks, etc. to the level of empirical evidence. Ever since scientists verify theories by instrument readings (data). And don't absurdities attributed to data like entanglement, Big Bang and multiverses confirm Kant, i.e. that logical constructions have no existence in the world?

Overall, positivism (unfortunately) isn't dead but has survived in analytical philosophy, which emphasizes analyticity and hence logic, with the consequence that science has adopted the processuality of logic and hence become temporal itself. This - timelessness vs. time - in my opinion, is the key difference between classical and modern science and surfaces in the difference between law and model.

Heinz

    You say that there are many logics, all with foundational problems. I do not agree with this. Godel proved his theorems with first order propoositional logic, and his system does not have foundational problems. ZF set theory also works fine.

    Contradicting Kant and Quine is a plus, not a minus. Kant refused to accept that 7+5=12 is a logical truth. He was so completely wrong about this that his opinions on the subject are incoherent. Likewise with Quine. He wrote a silly essay on "Two Dogmas" where he gripes about problems that had been solved 100 years earlier.

    I think that logical positivism has been rejected for ideological reasons, and not for any technical defect.

    There is a big field called Mathematics, and it has been using logic for centuries. While you can find some disagreements in some areas, there has been a consensus on the major issues for 100 years or so. So yes, I do think that logic is well defined.

    OK, I think I got the message...

    ...just ohne thing: Cantor's LOGICAL paradise is alive and kicking. So, which ideology has been rejected?

    Positivism has mainly been rejected by philosophers of the last 50 years. You could ask them about their ideologies. Much of academia has been taken over by certain ideologies.

    Outside of academic philosophy, I don't think many have rejected positivism. But of course most do not know what it is.

    Dear Roger Schlafly,

    Did you overlook my argument that there is no extended state "present" between past and future? FT introduced redundancy.

    Are you aware of what I yesterday wrote on Klingman'n page concerning Einstein's SR?

    Perhaps, missing practical relevance is a good indication of inapproriateness. Not just therefore I disagree with Luediger's claim that "Cantor's LOGICAL paradise is alive and kicking."

    Best, Eckard

      I see where you say, "While the past is unchangeable, the future is open to influences". I agree with that.

      9 days later

      Dear Roger,

      Glad to read your work again.

      I greatly appreciated your work and discussion. I am very glad that you are not thinking in abstract patterns.

      "The more welearn, the more we bump into limits of knowledge, and of what is possible. Trying to getpast those limits can get us lost. Our greatest progress has been from sticking to what canbe positively demonstrated, from either axioms or experiments

      Positivism is a legitimate philosophical view. Mathematics has a long tradition of stickingto what can be formally proved from axioms. Physics would be enriched by popularizing asimilar view,"

      "so that we can more easily distinguish established knowledge fromspeculation.I am not trying to persuade anyone to stop speculating about the interior of black holes, butto understand that positivists can reasonably argue that such theorizing has no knownscientific value".

      While the discussion lasted, I wrote an article: "Practical guidance on calculating resonant frequencies at four levels of diagnosis and inactivation of COVID-19 coronavirus", due to the high relevance of this topic. The work is based on the practical solution of problems in quantum mechanics, presented in the essay FQXi 2019-2020 "Universal quantum laws of the universe to solve the problems of unsolvability, computability and unpredictability".

      I hope that my modest results of work will provide you with information for thought.

      Warm Regards, `

      Vladimir

      Write a Reply...