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Logical positivism, later

called logical empiricism, and Part of a series on
both of which together are also Philosophy
known as neopositivism, is a
movement whose central thesis
is the verification principle (also
known as the verifiability
criterion of
meaning).[1] This theory of
knowledge asserts that only
statements verifiable through Philosophy portalContentsOutlineListsGlossaryHistoryCategoriesDisambiguation
direct observation or logical show
proof are meaningful in terms of Philosophies
conveying truth value, show
Branches
information or factual content.
Starting in the late 1920s, Philosophers
show
groups of philosophers,
scientists, and mathematicians vte
formed the Berlin Circle and
the Vienna Circle, which, in these two cities, would propound the ideas of logical positivism.

Flourishing in several European centres through the 1930s, the movement sought to prevent confusion
rooted in unclear language and unverifiable claims by converting philosophy into "scientific philosophy",
which, according to the logical positivists, ought to share the bases and structures of empirical sciences' best
examples, such as Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.[2] Despite its ambition to overhaul philosophy
by studying and mimicking the extant conduct of empirical science, logical positivism became erroneously
stereotyped as a movement to regulate the scientific process and to place strict standards on it.[2]

After World War II, the movement shifted to a milder variant, logical empiricism, led mainly by Carl Hempel,
who, during the rise of Nazism, had emigrated to the United States. In the ensuing years, the movement's
central premises, still unresolved, were heavily criticised by leading philosophers, particularly Willard van
Orman Quine and Karl Popper, and even, within the movement itself, by Hempel. The 1962 publication
of Thomas Kuhn's landmark book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions dramatically shifted academic
philosophy's focus. In 1967 philosopher John Passmore pronounced logical positivism "dead, or as dead as a
philosophical movement ever becomes".[3]