A Reflection on “Alfred Jules Ayer's Logical Positivism” by Edmel John Catalan

Ayer's logical positivism does not offer any new idea, instead it is merely a modification of
other's solution on truth, knowledge, meaning, perception, and reality. However, what Ayer
did in his logical positivism, which he likes to call 'logical empiricism,’ is that he compiled
ideas of different philosophers of logical positivism with great logical consistency. The
principal idea of Ayer's logical empiricism is that metaphysics is impossible. It is impossible
because metaphysical statements are meaningless. And a sentence will only have significance
if and only if there is a method of verification that an observer could utilize to either verify or
falsify the statement. This is the verification principle. Since metaphysics is beyond empirical
knowledge and is composed of abstractions identified only in the mind, it is, according to
Ayer, impossible to be verified. For “when experience cannot settle an issue, the issue has no
factual meaning.” Ayer further states that when the philosopher abandons metaphysics he
becomes freed from the first principles of existence that metaphysics puts forth. These
principles cannot come from experience and are merely hypotheses and do not offer certainty.
These statements are only tautologies that do not apply to the universe as factual knowledge.

What Ayer basically does is that whenever he cannot find an empirical solution to a problem,
he would immediately conclude that such problem is not a problem in the first place. I do get
the point of Ayer's argument. Since there can be some logical inconsistency when delving
into the world of abstraction, I understand Ayer's point of view regarding metaphysics. But
whenever I think of the first metaphysical principles, they just make so much sense to me that
I cannot easily jump into the conclusion that these statements are meaningless. Although
when using logic and the verification principle, metaphysical statements would seem
unverifiable/unfalsifiable. But I think that's only true in the eyes of an empiricist. And now
we go back again to the classic clash of rationalists and empiricists.

I can understand where empiricists are coming from, for they only rely on what they perceive
with their senses; they find it hard to believe that there is more to the nature of observable
things than meets the eye because they just can't feel it. But I also understand the rationalists
who think that observables are more than just sensation. That in order to understand the true
nature of such things, one must go beyond mere sensations and rationalize, which, then,
would lead to abstractions, things that can only be explained and understood in the mind and
through imagination and reason. But then things turned out to be more complicated than what
they expected, for the more a form of abstraction goes on a higher form of abstraction of
higher concepts, the more these concepts go away from our immediate percepts. And this was
the reason that the empiricists find it absurd. Sometimes I think that empiricism is kind of an
excuse to end an argument. Like, when concluding that observables are just simply what they
appear to be, or when concluding that a problem is not a problem in the first place just
because there is no given solution… 'YET’. I mean, sometimes it's just too early to conclude.
Maybe things are not as simple as they look or maybe they are. What always bugs me is the
continuous thread of argument regarding the nature of things; questions arise one after the
other to the point that they can no longer offer you certainty. And it just leads me to the
conclusion that maybe we are not meant to fully understand these things, maybe only a partial
is necessary, maybe we should not go beyond empirical knowledge, or maybe we should but
only to a certain extent. Maybe the reason why after centuries of studies we always go back
to the questions with doubt, uncertainty, and absurdity because some things are just beyond
the realm of human logic. And whatever we do to pierce these boundaries will only lead us to
conclusions farther from the truth. Maybe that's why philosophy is a continuous search for
the truth.