Reconsidering Logical Positivism

by Michael Friedman

In this collection of essays one of the preeminent philosophers of science writing today offers a reinterpretation of the enduring significance of logical positivism, the revolutionary philosophical movement centered around the Vienna Circle in the 1920s and '30s. Michael Friedman argues that the logical positivists were radicals not by presenting a new version of empiricism (as is often thought to be the case) but rather by offering a new conception of a priori knowledge and its role in empirical knowledge. This collection will be mandatory reading for any philosopher or historian of science interested in the history of logical positivism in particular or the evolution of modern philosophy in general.

Genres: Philosophy, Logic

276 pages, Paperback

First published July 28, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Michael Friedman was an American philosopher who was Emeritus Patrick Suppes Professor of Philosophy of Science and Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies at Stanford University. Friedman was best known for his work in the philosophy of science, especially on scientific explanation and the philosophy of physics, and for his historical work on Immanuel Kant. Friedman has done historical work on figures in continental philosophy such as Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer. He also served as the co-director of the Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at Stanford University.

Reviews

[Michael Norwitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Friedman's account of the logical positivists. The first section was a bit of a whirlwind ride through the school and the debates of the era, and I found it tough going with a lot of assumption of background knowledge which I have largely forgotten. The second section (an examination of Carnap's Aufbau) and the third (on the principle of tolerance, largely centered on Carnap) are clearly written and an excellent explication of Carnap's thought. Highly recommended for students of Austrian analytic philosophy.

[Jonathan Hockey · Rating 4 out of 5]

He makes some good and precise critiques of others conceptions of general relativity, from figures such as Reichenbach and Moritz Schlick to Weyl, Poincare and Carnap, but he doesn't apply the same critique to his own understanding of it. His own view on it in this book seems to be some sort of holistic societal commitment, which is a philosophical view fraught with difficulties. And would ultimately beg the question of any philosophical insight and so not even undermine Kantian style thinking on the matter. One has to deal with the arguments on their own terms, not just hide behind current holistic conventions in an apologistic manner.

Elsewhere he has claimed to defend a kind of realist reading of relativity, which at least is a more philosophically respectable effort, but this is also fraught with difficulties naturally. Because it is very unclear where and when general relativity is open to reality. It has become almost a victim of its own success, in that the fact it seems to fit reality absolutely perfectly is either an amazing coincidence or is in fact due to its truth being not open to question, and it in fact being the source of its own standards of what is true and false. It is still not clear in what areas this applies and what it doesn't, so an umabiguous realism about general relativity has a lot of work to do.

Now I wouldn't take this kind of holism to be a good thing. I would take it to be an extremely worrying thing. On the other side if we take a relationalist approach, and try to reduce relativity to a pure relationalism we take other risks for we would then not have any ontological grounds for believing many of the implications of general relativity regarding singularities, gravitational waves and the like. These things though claimed to be empirically proven, still have a very tenuous grip on our reality. The gravitational waves coming down to one or two experimental detections of slight blips in a noise of data. The blackholes being only detected based on presumptions that a certain unseen matter must be causing certain accelerations akin to the postulations of dark matter.

These are a lot of things to take on trust, but much of the institutions of our society seem to have become run on quite an excessive trust of experts and perhaps we should take a step back before we rush headlong into the comforts of a uniform, holistic narrative where everyone pats each other on the back for being part of the same team.

[Mia Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Friedman's account of the logical positivists. The first section was a bit of a whirlwind ride through the school and the debates of the era, and I found it tough going with a lot of assumption of background knowledge which I have largely forgotten. The second section (an examination of Carnap's Aufbau) and the third (on the principle of tolerance, largely centered on Carnap) are clearly written and an excellent explication of Carnap's thought. Highly recommended for students of Austrian analytic philosophy.