Neopositivism is a philosophical school that includes the ideas of empiricism. This teaching is to know the world using sensory experience. And relying on logic, rationality and mathematics to be able to systematize the knowledge gained. Logical positivism, as this direction is otherwise called, claims that if everything that is impossible to know is eliminated, then the world will be known. Neo-positivism, whose representatives mainly lived in Warsaw and Lvov, Berlin, and even in the United States of America, proudly carried this title. After the outbreak of the First World War, many of them emigrated to the west of Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean, which contributed to the spread of this doctrine.
Development history
Ernst Mach and Ludwig Wittgenstein were the first to talk about a new direction. From their words it appeared that neopositivism is a synthesis of metaphysics, logic and science. One of them even wrote a treatise on logic, where he emphasized the central provisions of the emerging school:
- Our thinking is limited only by the language, therefore, the more languages a person knows and the wider his education, the furtherhis thinking extends.
- There is only one world, facts, events and scientific progress determine how we imagine it.
- Each sentence reflects the whole world, as it is built according to similar laws.
- Any complex sentence can be broken down into several simple ones, consisting, in fact, of facts.
- Higher forms of being are inexpressible. Simply put, the spiritual realm cannot be measured and deduced as a scientific formula.
Machism
This term is often used as a synonym for the definition of "positivism". E. Mach and R. Avenarius are considered to be its creators.
Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher who studied mechanics, gas dynamics, acoustics, optics and otorhinolaryngology. The main idea of Machism is that experience should form an idea of the world. Positivism and neo-positivism, as doctrines advocating the empirical path of cognition, are rejected by Machism, whose main statement is that philosophy must become a science that studies human sensations. And this is the only way to get knowledge about the real world.
Economy of thought
Neopositivism in philosophy is a new vision of an old problem. The "economy of thought" would cover the maximum of issues with a minimum of effort expended. It was this pragmatic approach that the founders of neopositivism considered the most acceptable, logical and organized for research. In addition, these philosophers believed that in order to accelerate scientific inventions and formulations of description andexplanations need to be removed from them.
Mach believed that the simpler the science, the closer it is to the ideal. If the definition is formulated as simply and clearly as possible, it reflects the real picture of the world. Machism became the basis of neopositivism, it was identified with the "biological-economic" theory of knowledge. Physics has lost its metaphysical component, while philosophy has become just a way of analyzing language. This is what neo-positivism affirmed. Its representatives strove for a simple and economical understanding of the world, which they partially succeeded in.
Vienna Circle
A circle of people has formed at the Department of Inductive Sciences at the University of Vienna who want to study science and philosophy at the same time. The ideological core of this organization was Moritz Schlick.
David Hume is another person who promoted neo-positivism. Problems that he considered incomprehensible to science, such as God, the soul, and similar metaphysical aspects, were not the object of his research. All members of the Vienna Circle were firmly convinced that things not empirically proven were insignificant and did not require detailed study.
Estemological principles
The "Vienna School" formulated its own principles of knowledge of the surrounding world. Here are some of them.
- All human knowledge is based on sensory perception. Individual facts may not be related. What a person cannot understand empirically does not exist. Thus, another principle was born: any scientific knowledge can be reduced to a simple sentence based on the senses.perception.
- The knowledge that we receive through sensory perception is the absolute truth. They also introduced the concepts of true and protocol sentences, which changed the attitude towards scientific formulations in general.
- Absolutely all functions of knowledge are reduced to the description of the received sensations. Neopositivists saw the world as a collection of impressions formulated into simple sentences. Positivism and neopositivism refused to give definitions to the external world, reality and other metaphysical things, considering them insignificant. Their main task was to draw up criteria for evaluating individual sensations and systematize them.
Abstract
The denial of higher ideas and problems, the specific form of obtaining knowledge and the simplicity of formulations greatly complicate such a concept as neopositivism. This does not make it more attractive to potential adherents. Two important theses, which were the cornerstone of this direction, are formulated as follows:
- Solving any problem requires careful formulation, so logic is central to philosophy.
- Every theory that is not a priori must be verifiable by empirical methods of knowledge.
Postpositivism
Positivism, neo-positivism, post-positivism are links of one logical chain. This direction in philosophy appeared at the moment when scientists realized that it was necessary to formulate all scientific theses based onexclusively on empirical experience, it is impossible. The attempt to exclude metaphysics from philosophy, which raised the classical problems of man and humanity, was equally defeated. The very recognition of this fact made it possible to say that neopositivism is already an irrelevant system for formulating scientific research. The work of Karl Popper "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" became the exact point of no return. Logic and a critical view of the problem came to the fore, and as far as science is concerned, each fact needed a proper evidence base.
Positivism and neo-positivism are obsolete for the rapidly developing scientific progress. A fresh look and a sound philosophical approach were needed. Post-positivism considered it unacceptable to separate science and philosophy, rejecting a rigid opposition to metaphysics and other aspects of the field of speculative conclusions. Neo-positivism in philosophy was an opportunity for logicians to seize power over minds. But they were ruined by simplicity and empiricism against the backdrop of a rapidly approaching future.
