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Subject PSYCHOLOGY

Paper No and Title Paper No 3: Qualitative Methods

Module No and Title Module No 2: Logical Positivism

Module Tag PSY_P3_M2

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Learning Outcomes
2. Introduction
2.1 Historical Background
3. The Vienna Circle
3.1 Themes of Logical Positivism
4. The Main Philosophical Tenets of Logical Positivism
4.1 The Verifiability Principle
4.2 Sources of Knowledge
4.3 Reductionism and the Unity of Science
5. Limitations/Criticisms
5.1 Internal Weakness
5.2 External Criticisms
6. Logical positivism and Psychology
7. Summary

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1. Learning Outcomes
After studying this module, you shall be able to

 Understand how philosophical debates guide and govern research and knowledge
production.
 Learn about the historical emergence of the logical positivist movement.
 Identify the influence of logical positivism in psychological research.
 Evaluate the major philosophical tenets of logical positivism.
 Analyze the weaknesses inherent in the principles of logical positivism.

2. Introduction
One of the most influential schools of philosophy of science in the twentieth century was logical
positivism. This school of philosophy developed in Austria and Germany in the 1920s and was
also known as logical empiricism.

The development of logical positivism was influenced by the rapid changes taking place in
physical science and mathematics. Thus, this view upheld the notion that scientific knowledge
was the most important kind of factual information that was available, and all metaphysical
doctrines were to be rejected as meaningless.

Since, science was believed to be the model for intellectual and social progress, logical positivists
resorted to analyzing the structure of scientific knowledge and reasoning. The practice of logical
positivism, believes in two major sources of knowledge, one being logical reasoning while the
other being empirical experience.

The proponents of logical positivism included Moritz Schlick, founder of the Vienna Circle,
Rudolf Carnap, Hans Reichenbach, founder of the Berlin Circle, Alfred Jules Ayer, Herbert Feigl,
Philipp Frank, Kurt Grelling, Hans Hahn, Carl Gustav Hempel, Victor Kraft, Otto Neurath, and
Friedrich Waismann.

Despite being influential, the movement was short lived. Many philosophers and scientists today
believe that logical positivism has left an indelible mark on the philosophy of science. This
influence of logical positivism is particularly noticeable in the attention philosophers give to the
analysis of scientific thought and to the integration of results from technical research on formal
logic and the theory of probability.

To better understand these developments lets revisit the movement.

2.1 Historical Background

The philosophy of logical positivism did not emerge in isolation. The questions and issues which
had been raised by this circle of philosophers were no different from those raised previously at
different times. This section focuses on the forces that influenced the development of logical
positivism to a great extent.

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2.1.1 Classical Empiricism: Logical positivism borrowed

itself from 18th century classical empiricism, which postulated that all knowledge can be
gained only through the senses. This position was opposite of the rationalist position,
which stated that knowledge can be gained through the use of reason. One of the key
figures of classical empiricism was John Locke (1632-1704). Locke proposed that
everything is learnt and nothing is innate. It is through experiencing and learning that the
mind is furbished. The mind of a new born child is, according to Locke, a tabula rasa or
an empty slate and it is by experiencing the world through his/her senses that he/she
develops ideas which become the source of all knowledge. Hence, the empiricist
philosophers therefore strongly upheld that only sensory data could be treated as evidence
which is verifiable in nature, instead of the metaphysical propositions favored by the
rationalists. Other empiricists like David Hume (1711–1776), Thomas Hobbes (1588–
1679) and Francis Bacon (1561-1626) also emphasized on observable consequences of
actions. Additionally, few American pragmatists like C. S. Peirce (1839–1914), William
James (1842–1910) and John Dewey (1859–1962), also served as inspirational influence
for the logical positivists.

2.1.2 Positivism: Logical positivism combined developments in empiricism and pragmatism

with the existing positivist tradition, whose primary propagator was the French
philosopher Auguste Comte. Comte’s ideas influenced both sciences- Natural and Social.
The positivist approach believed that, the society functions in similar manner as the
physical world, since the basic principles and general laws are applicable in both. In
physics, the French mathematician as well as a philosopher-Jules Henri Poincare(1854-
1912) applied the positivist ideas, so as to construct a mechanism for comprehending and
measuring human sensations and perceptions in terms of basic physical concepts. Ernst
Mach (1838–1916), an Austrian physicist took a similar view. He proposed that the laws
of physics were synonymous to the laws of all other sciences (including natural sciences),
and were just like a shorthand summary of the numerous relationships which exist
between the experiences of different observers.

Fig 1: Auguste Comte Fig 2: Ernst Mach

2.1.3 Russell’s Mathematical Logic: Bertrand Russell’s mathematical logic exerted a great
influence on logical positivism. Much of Russell’s work was concerned with the desires
for perfect clarity and absolute certainty resting on the belief that analysis can be pursued
down to certain indivisible elements, which are in some way incorrigible, and hence
justify the intellectual edifice constructed from them. For this purpose he distinguished
knowledge by acquaintance, which is indubitable, from knowledge by description, which
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may be in error. Examples of knowledge by

acquaintance are sense data and the contents of our
own memory. Borrowing from Russell, logical positivists not only adopted the thesis that
all knowledge must be based on sense experience but were driven by the same motive of
certainty and perfect clarity.

2.1.4 Wittgenstein's Tractatus was a text proposed by Ludwig Wittgenstein. It was of great
importance for the positivists. This school of thought believed that the basic building
blocks of reality are objects (simple and unanalyzable piece of information) which
combine together to exist in a context forming the state of affairs. It has further focused
on linguistic reforms by using modern logic and has also drawn attention to deducing
a theoretically principled distinction between intelligible and nonsensical discourse.
Wittgenstein's influence is further evident in certain formulations of the verification
principle. Wittgenstein also influenced interpretation of probability by the logical
positivists’.

3. The Vienna Circle

The Vienna Circle was a group of scientifically trained philosophers and philosophically
interested scientists, lead by Moritz Schlick. These professionals often met on Thursday
evenings, every week, for discussing the problems regarding the philosophical dimension of
scientific disciplines. The meetings began during the academic term, in the year 1924 and
continued till 1936. These thinkers were greatly influenced by recent developments in science
particularly Einstein’s physics, mathematical logic and philosophy of language and sought to
synthesize these new ideas to institute a new philosophy. These groups of philosophers were
against “German idealism” in particular, Hegel and Heidegger, who derived much of their ideas
from German Idealism. They found their philosophies too abstruse and unclear. The Vienna
Circle placed a high premium on reason, clarity and precision of language. They wanted to dispel
mysticism, romanticism and nationalism. They also rejected the need for interpretation.

Fig 3: Rudolf Carnap

Schlick, who was the leader of the distinguished group, had been appointed to Mach's old chair in
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences at the University of Vienna in 1922. Apart from him, the
group also involved participation of Hans Hahn (the mathematician), the social scientist Otto

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Neurath, and his wife, Olga Hahn-Neurath, who was a

mathematician. In addition the philosopher Viktor Kraft was
also a member of the group, along-with Theodor Radacovic and Gustav Bergmann (both of
whom were mathematicians) and, lastly, Rudolf Carnap, a philosopher as well as a logician, who
joined the circle only in 1926. After its formative phase, the Circle went public in 1928 and 1929.
It is then that the Vienna Circle became popular amongst the population of intellects and began to
play a prominent role in the academic as well as the public sphere. Throughout the early and mid-
1930s the Circle held numerous conferences and presented various publications which helped it
to establish an international profile. In 1930, the Circle, together with the Berlin society, took
over, the journal Annalen der Philosophie and restarted it under the name of Erkenntnis which
was co-edited by Carnap and Reichenbach

3.1 Themes of Logical Positivism:

Although the varied members, who were a part of the Vienna Circle, disagreed and had issues of
dispute, there were a few positions that they agreed upon as well. These being;-.

First, they advocated reliance on experience as a guide to knowledge. They postulated that all
forms of knowledge (except for the “analytic” truths of mathematics and logic) should be derived
from experience, thereby making it a philosophy of radical empiricism.

Second, they rejected “metaphysical” claims that is- the claims that could not be verified by
appealing to the given facts and evident (literally, the data) experience. In this sense they were
positivistic in their approach.

Third, they hailed the methods of physics as truly scientific and the only way to true knowledge.
Thus they propagated the use of methods, like observation, experimentation, that were used by
physicists to learn more about the world.

Finally, they emphasized on the importance of logical constructions, since these constructions
relate the basic forms of data (sensations, measurements, etc.) to the higher order objects which
are ingrained in scientific theories (atoms, waves, energy, etc.).

4. The Main Philosophical Tenets of Logical Positivism

4.1 The Verifiability Principle

One of the chief tenets of logical positivism was the verifiability principle. According to this
principle, the meaning of a sentence depends upon its method of verification. They ask the
question – how do words get meaning? Whereas Plato conceived of a realm of ideal forms, from
which meaning is received, the logical positivists held the view that meaning of a sentence is the
means by which we verify it. In other words, its meaning encompasses the measurements one
would make to determine its truth or falsity. As Schlick observed:

The criterion of the truth or falsity of the proposition then lies in the fact that under
definite conditions (given in the definition), certain data are present, or not present. If this
is determined then everything asserted by the proposition is determined, and I know its
meaning.
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For instance, let us consider the proposition which states that

the temperature of a certain volume of water is 90 degrees Celsius. What is the meaning of this
statement? The answer from a logical positivist orientation would be that if a thermometer is
immersed in the water, then the reading will show 90̊ C. Still, “reading a thermometer” will
provide a vague and incomplete description. For a more precise description, the Celsius
thermometer should be immersed in the water, the reading should be allowed to stabilize, and
then the observation should be made (which may indicate that the reading is opposite the
‘90’mark). This is still somewhat far from sense data, however, so a further explication might be:
“When the meniscus of the mercury column stops moving, it is closer to line marked ‘90’ than to
the lines marked ‘89’ or ‘91’.” In general, it can be said that all meaningful statements of fact are
measurable, and these measurements are eventually dependent on one’s perception, such as
judging which mark on a dial is the closest to a pointer.
As can be easily inferred from the above example that for logical positivist any statements that
are not verifiable are not meaningful which implies a rejection of all metaphysics. Indeed, they
dispelled the need for metaphysics and focused on what was available for observation.

4.2 Sources of Knowledge

According to logical positivism, there are two main sources of knowledge: one is logical
reasoning and the other is empirical experience. The former is analytic a priori, while the latter is
synthetic a posteriori. The fundamental thesis of logical positivism consisted in denying the
possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge.

To better understand the fundamental thesis, let’s review the terms used above

I. Analytic and Synthetic Statements

Consider the following examples:

Statement 1: All bachelors are unmarried men.
Statement 2: Many bachelors are doctors.
The first statement, we know, is true by virtue of the definition of the terms. We know that
bachelors mean unmarried men. Here the predicate adds nothing to the subject. Such
statements, whose truths seem to be knowable by knowing the meanings of the constituent
words, are Analytic Statements.
The truth or falsity of the second statement is dependent on empirical verification. Notice here
that the predicate, “are doctors” adds something to the subject “Many bachelors”. Such
statements, whose truth is knowable by both knowing the meanings of the words and something
about the world are Synthetic Statements.
II. A Priori and A Posteriori:

A priori is Latin for “from the earlier” and Kant used it to refer to those objects of our
knowledge that are known outside of our experience. In other words, their justification does not
rely on experience. Eg: All Unicorns have horns.
A posteriori is Latin for “from the later and refers to those aspects of our knowledge that are
known through experience. Eg: All crows are black.
These distinctions were used by Kant in The Critique of Pure Reason (1781).

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Kant believed that synthetic a priori can exist, that is to say that something whose justification
does not rely on experience but which can be empirically verified. For e.g. The axiom 8 + 5 = 13,
according to Kant is an a priori but at the same time synthetic, since it can be verified empirically
and because the concept of 13 (the predicate) is not contained in the concepts of 8 and 5 (the
subject), the statement is synthetic.

However, with the developments in logic by Frege and Russell, (a) indicated that statements in
arithmetic can be considered analytic a priori rather than synthetic a priori and (b) created a
distinction between logical analysis and empirical investigation.

Influenced by the work of Russell and Frege, the logical positivists denied the possibility of
synthetic a priori statements

4.3 Reductionism and the Unity of Science

The logical positivists heralded physics as the highest science and believed that all knowledge
could be reformulated in terms of the language of physics. In other words, propositions expressed
in biological terms could be restated in physical terms. In this manner all knowledge could be
reduced to physics.

The thesis of physicalism emphasized that the language of physics is a universal language
of science — that is to say, that every language of any sub-domain of science can be
equipollently translated into the physical language. From this it follows that science is
unitary system within which there are no fundamentally diverse object-domains, and
consequently no gulf, for example, between natural and psychological sciences. This is
the thesis of the unity of science. (Carnap, LSL, p. 320)

The proponents of logical positivism were not able to follow this principle. But, their belief to
explain phenomena in physical terms and to accept the methodology of physics as the standard of
“real science” is still widely accepted in the scientific field.

5. Limitations/ Criticisms
By the end of 1930s, the logical positivist movement had started to break down and was drawing
towards its end. However, the ideas and methods of logical positivism continue to this day in
various disciplines. The reasons for the breakdown of logical positivism can be grouped into two
categories: internal weakness and external criticism

5.1 Internal Weakness

One of the foremost criticisms was that logical positivism rendered certain forms of languages
like poetry, ethics and theology meaningless for they are untestable. Even though this problem
did not bother them, it created contradictions and inconsistencies for their model. Consider the
following example:
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“Water is blue and god is good” is testable under the rules of logic If A is false, then A and B
must be false. While part of this statement is meaningless another part is verifiable but it makes
for a tricky position to occupy. They tried but failed to solve this contradiction.

Another point of criticism for logical positivists was the status of verifiability principle. The
verifiability principle could not be classified as an analytic statement which meant that it had to
be synthetic. However the logical positivists were confronted with the problem of reflexivity:
How could the theory of verifiability be verified?
Even the distinctions that the logical positivists based their theory on were not empirically
testable. For instance, one may ask whether there is a scientific way to make sense of the
analytic-synthetic distinction. In fact, the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions
can collapse with a revision of analytic statements in the light of new experiences. E.g. “Parallel
lines do not intersect” is an analytic statement. However, with the discovery of black holes we
know that space warps make it possible for parallel lines to intersect.

A final problem with the verifiability principle was to do with its application itself. The
application of this principle would suggest that no scientific law is meaningful. For example, it
can be verified that Socrates is mortal, that Plato is mortal and that Aristotle is mortal. However,
it is not possible to verify the statement ‘all people are mortal’. This is because an infinite number
of cases would have to be observed in order to verify this proposition. Scientific laws are
applicable to an infinite number of situations and since it is not possible to verify innumerable
cases, they remain strictly unverifiable.

5.2 External Criticism

Quine(1908-2000) in his seminal paper “The Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951) stated that
testing and meaning are holistic in nature. That is to say, when testing one idea or hypothesis, we
test other related ideas as well and any time we get a result that is not anticipated, the problem
may lie with one of the assumed or related ideas and not necessarily with the hypothesis being
tested. If testing an idea means testing other statements associated with it, and then we also
subject the analytic statements to testing which contradicts the very supposition that analytic
statements are immune from testing.

Karl Popper (1902-1994), like the logical positivists, was concerned with the problem of
demarcation. He said that questions of meaning were of little or no relative importance; instead a
demarcation was required in the theories and the methods of testing them. In other words, Popper
proposed the distinction between science and pseudoscience on the basis of falsifiability. Popper
believed that scientific theories could not be proved to be true because of the theory of induction.
He thought the logical positivists were on an incorrect path and that the thing that marked out
science was its potential to be falsified. While it is the case that no finite number of observations
can ever prove the truth of a universal scientific theory, logically only one case is required to
contradict a theory’s universal assertion in order for it to be falsifiable or refuted. What is
distinctive about scientific theories is not that they can be proved true, but they are testable,
therefore falsifiable.

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Among others, Thomas Kuhn’s (1922-1996) celebrated work,

the ‘Structure of Scientific Revolutions’ (1962) gave a final
blow to logical positivism by attacking the premise that observation is a secure base for scientific
knowledge. He argued that observations are influenced by the very paradigm the observer works
with and that it cannot decide between competing theories. Elaborating Hanson’s concept of
theory ladenness, Kuhn stated that observers do not make identical observations because what
they see depends on what they know or believe. Consequently, all knowledge is based on
paradigms which limit the field of investigation by restricting questions and answers, and that
condition expectations.

6. Logical Positivism and Psychology

Much of the 19th century research in psychology was dominated by logical positivism. The rise of
behaviorism with emphasis on observable behavior, scientific experimentation and accurate
measurement is a testimony to the influence of logical positivism. Though the first “Behaviorist
manifesto”, released by Watson in 1913 precedes the Vienna Circle, B. F. Skinner, who is one of
the principal advocates of behaviorism, traced his ideas to Mach, Poincare and Comte. These
people are also considered the forerunners of the logical positivists. Clearly, behaviorism and
logical positivism share ideas which were prevalent or “in the air” at that time.

Logical positivism believed in theorizing while maintaining objectivity and thus, led to the
emergence of more complex forms of behaviorism. S. S. Stevens, a prominent American
psychologist, tried to formulate a psychology which followed the dictates of logical positivism, in
an attempt to bring it on par with physics.

With the growth of logical positivism, operationism grew rapidly and was established within the
discipline of psychology immediately. Operational definitions began to be used for converting
theoretical terms such as drive, learning, anxiety, and intelligence into empirical events. These
terms were thus stripped of their metaphysical connotations by being operationally defined. This
approach was in line with psychology’s new emphasis on observable behavior. For example,
learning could be operationally defined as being able to make ‘n’ number of successive correct

turns in a T-maze, and anxiety and intelligence could be operationally defined as scores on their
respective tests. Such definitions were entirely based on publicly observable behavior; they had
no excess “mentalistic” meaning. Most psychologists soon agreed with the logical positivists that
unless a concept can be operationally defined, it is scientifically meaningless.

Neo behaviorism resulted when behaviorism was combined with logical positivism. Logical
positivism paved the way for various forms of behaviorism: “Objectivity in data collection; and
agreement about specific modes of objectivism, and about the theoretical implications of
‘objective’ data”.

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7. Summary
 Logical positivism is a school of philosophy born in 1920s in Austria and Germany when
a group of scientists, philosophers and mathematicians came together to formulate a
science which was certain and clear.

 Its main assertion was that only statements that could be verified empirically were
genuine. Logical positivists denied the soundness of metaphysics and traditional
philosophy and went on to assert that many philosophical problems were indeed
meaningless.

 According to logical positivism, there are only two sources of knowledge: logical
reasoning and empirical experience.

 The verifiability principle was the cornerstone of their philosophy along with the goals of
reductionism and unification of all sciences.

 The inherent contradictions in the verifiability principle and the critique of their
assumptions by other philosophers led to the fall of Logical Positivism.

 Logical Positivism influenced all disciplines, including psychology. The rise of

behaviorism and logical positivism boosted new forms of research and theorization in
psychology.

 The impact of logical positivism continues to exist today, a number of their ideas have
been assimilated by other philosophies or research methodologies.

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