Philosophy of the XX century. Neopositivism is ... Neopositivism: representatives, description and features

Neopositivism is a philosophical school that includes the ideas of empiricism. This teaching is to learn the world, using sensory experience. And relying on logic, rationality and mathematics to be able to systematize the knowledge gained. Logical positivism, as otherwise called this direction, argues that if you eliminate all that can not be learned, then the world will be known. Neo-positivism, whose representatives mostly lived in Warsaw and Lviv, 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, which contributed to the dissemination of this doctrine.

History of development

For the first time Ernst Mach and Ludwig Wittgenstein started talking about a new direction . From their words it turned out that neopositivism is a synthesis of metaphysics, logic and science. One of them even wrote a treatise on logic, where he emphasized the central positions of the emerging school:

1. Our thinking is limited only by language, therefore, the more a person knows languages and the wider his education, the further his thinking extends.
2. There is only one world, facts, events and scientific progress determine how we imagine it.
3. Each proposal reflects the whole world, since it is built according to similar laws.
4. Any complex sentence can be divided into several simple ones consisting, in fact, of facts.
5. The higher forms of being are inexpressible. Simply put, the spiritual sphere can not be measured and derived as a scientific formula.

Machism

This term is often used as a synonym for the definition of "positivism". Its creators are E. Mach and R. Avenarius.

Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, he studied mechanics, gas dynamics, acoustics, optics and otorhinolaryngology. The main idea of Machism is that experience must form an idea of the world. Positivism and neo-positivism as the doctrines that advocate the empirical path of cognition are rejected by Machism, the main statement of which is that philosophy must become a science that studies the sensations of man. And only so you can get knowledge about the real world.

Saving Thinking

Neo-positivism in philosophy is a new vision of the old problem. "Saving Thought" would cover the maximum of issues with a minimum of effort expended. It was this pragmatic approach that the founders of neopositivism considered to be the most acceptable, logical and organized for research. In addition, these philosophers believed that to speed up scientific speculation and formulations, descriptions and explanations must 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 true 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, philosophy has become only a way of analyzing the language. So approved neopositivism. Representatives of him aspired to a simple and economical understanding of the world, which they partly succeeded.

Vienna Circle

At the Department of Inductive Sciences, the University of Vienna, a circle of people has formed, wishing to engage in science and philosophy at the same time. The ideological core of this organization was Moritz Schlick.

David Hume can be called one more person who promoted neopositivism. The problems that he considered an inconceivable science, such as God, the soul, and similar metaphysical aspects, were not the object of his research. All the members of the Vienna Circle were firmly convinced that things that had not been proven empirically were inessential and did not require detailed study.

Epistemological principles

The "Vienna School" formulated its principles of cognition of the surrounding world. Here are some of them.

1. All knowledge of mankind is based on sensory perception. Some facts may not be related. What a person can not understand empirically, does not exist. So another principle was born: any scientific knowledge can be reduced to a simple sentence based on sensory perception.
2. The knowledge that we receive through sensory perception is absolute true. They also introduced the concepts of a true and a protocol proposal, which changed the attitude towards scientific formulations as a whole.
3. Absolutely all the functions of knowledge are reduced to a description of the sensations received. Neo-positivists saw the world as a set of impressions, formulated in simple sentences. Positivism and neo-positivism refused to give definitions to the external world, reality, and other metaphysical things, considering them to be immaterial. Their main task was to formulate criteria for the evaluation of individual sensations and to systematize them.

Abstracts

Negation of higher ideas and problems, a specific form of obtaining knowledge and simplicity of formulations significantly 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:

- The solution of any problem requires its careful formulation, therefore logic has a central place in philosophy.

- Every theory that is not a priori must be accessible to verification by empirical methods of cognition.

Postpositivism

Positivism, neopositivism, postpositivism are links of one logical chain. This trend in philosophy emerged at a time when scientists realized that it is impossible to formulate all the scientific theses, based solely on empirical experience . Equally defeated and an attempt to exclude from philosophy metaphysics, raising the classical problems of man and mankind. The very recognition of this fact made it possible to say that neopositivism is already an irrelevant system for the formulation of scientific research. The exact non-return was the work of Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. The logic and critical view of the problem came to the forefront, and as far as science is concerned, under each fact, an essential evidence base was needed.

Positivism and neo-positivism are morally obsolete for the rapidly developing scientific progress. It was necessary to have a fresh look and a sound philosophical approach. Postpositivism considered it inadmissible to divide science and philosophy, reject rigid opposition to metaphysics and other aspects of the field of speculative conclusions. Neo-positivism in philosophy was the ability of logicians to seize power over minds. But they were reduced by simplicity and empiricality against the backdrop of a rapidly approaching future.